Tony Maietta:
Hello, I'm film historian Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just a guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta:
We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's Golden Age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

Brad Shreve:
And of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

Tony Maietta:
As does your self-delusion. Welcome to Going Hollywood.

Tony Maietta:
Brad, I need to ask you a question.

Brad Shreve:
Okay.

Tony Maietta:
So you think that you got troubles well, trouble's a bubble so tell old Mr. Trouble to get lost why not hold your head up high and stop crying Start trying and don't forget to keep your fingers crossed Notice I didn't sing it. Do you know what I'm doing?

Brad Shreve:
Let me take a guess. I'm gonna guess. I don't know this. Those are probably the never heard lyrics to the theme song.

Tony Maietta:
They are to the Dick Van Dyke show because that's what we're talking about today. Those are the. Written by Maury Amsterdam by Buddy Sorrell himself after the series was over.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, after it was over. Okay.

Tony Maietta:
The king of timing writes the lyrics to the show after the show is already over.

Brad Shreve:
I thought maybe it was like Gunsmoke. And they never. Well, they never did the. The lyrics to this.

Tony Maietta:
Well, what other show do we talk about that had lyrics that weren't on you remember that? They didn't get the lyrics written in time.

Speaker C:
Oh,

Tony Maietta:
Bewitched.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, Bewitched. Yes, you're right. Yeah, they sang it in the movie. But we won't discuss that movie.

Tony Maietta:
No, we won't. So anyway, that pithy opening was just the way of saying that today we are indeed talking about the Dick Van Dyke Show. It's a very special day here at

Brad Shreve:
Going Hollywood and we are going to dedicate it to the person that recommended that we do this show. We've been talking about it for ages and we kept putting it off. So Ellen in Toronto, thank you for sending us that email that said do Dick Van Dyke. So we really appreciate it, though. I don't know if I will ever forgive you for sending me the link to the pilot and making us watch that. It is one of those where I watch the pilot and I'm like, how did this sell?

Tony Maietta:
Well, it didn't sell. That's the problem. It did not sell. But before we get. Before we get into that, the pilot. We are going to talk about the pilot of the Dick Van Dyke show called Head of the Family. However, what about. Did you watch the other link I sent you? That's the one I want to hear about.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, I did the very brief.

Tony Maietta:
What did you think of that?

Brad Shreve:
It was. I never knew that Rosemarie was a child star. I never knew that. And when that, when that little clip you sent me of her doing a little song and dance routine which I think was only 30 seconds long, other YouTube videos popped up that talked about her child career and I didn't have Time to watch them. So I'm gonna have to go back.

Tony Maietta:
Well, there's a fascinating documentary called Wait for your Laugh, which is all about Rosemarie. But yes, what I sent Brad was a clip of baby Rosemarie at age. I think it's probably about five. Belt in the hell out of some number nothing. Rosemary. You know, it's amazing people don't realize that that Rosemarie from the Dick Van Dyke show was a child star. And we're not talking Shirley Temple here. I mean, she was not Shirley Temple.

Tony Maietta:
She was more Sophie Tucker. I mean, she was this dominion. She was five years old. She started at three actually. She was a huge radio star. She was this diminutive. She had little bobbed haircut, dark. She was adorable.

Tony Maietta:
And she had that same voice and she just built. Yada dadda doo doo. I mean, she was phenomenal. So when you see Rosemarie on the Dick Van Dyke show with Buddy and they start doing their numbers, it's in her blood. She's been doing it her entire life. I love that. I was astounded when I saw those clips of Rosemarie.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I was really surprised. You surprised me. I'm trying to think of what age she would have been at 5 years old. That been around 1928. I just looked it up. If she was 5.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. Well, those. The clip that I showed you and listener. This is a little tangential, but too bad. So Rosemarie did Vitaphone shorts. When talkies were air quotes. Talkies were starting. One of the things they did, again, it wasn't.

Tony Maietta:
They weren't making films. Dialogue was not the point of the talkies, it was the music and the sound. So they would do these Vitaphone shorts and they were done in New York and vaudeville performers would do these five 10 minute shorts. And that's. Thank God she did that because that is really all we really have of her, other than her radio appearances of Rosemarie as a child. This incredible child star doing these Vitaphone shorts, which is a. Which is the only surviving record of her incredible career as a. As a child star, as baby Rosemarie.

Speaker D:
Wow.

Tony Maietta:
Baby Rosemary.

Brad Shreve:
I had no idea.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. So I just wanted you to see that because I think it's really fun to look at her and then think of her as, you know, you know, her other incredible. I mean, if anybody. Their most famous roles here. And all of these people, except for maybe one person, when you think of Rosemary and you think of Sally Rogers, you see that and you see, you know, Maury Amsterdam as Maurice Air quotes. Buddy Sorel, should we go over. Should we go through the. The cast list of the Dick Van Dyk show in case somebody doesn't know who's been under a Rock for 70 years?

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, but actually just want to let people know that we are going to do our usual format when we do TV shows.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Tony picked two episodes, I picked two episodes. And about half the time we throw in the pilot, which we did this time. So we watched five episodes. We're just going to gloss over the pilot. Just give it a quick explanation.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, we're just going to touch on the pilot because it's just. It just needs to be touched.

Speaker D:
So.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Who was in this show, Tony?

Tony Maietta:
Well, first of all, I want to say the show, the Dick Van Dyke show, has Dick Van Dyke in it. But, you know, as we also do in my art pilots, I have some tidbits that I'm going to intersperse. And one of my very first tidbits is, did you know this is not the first series to be called the Dick Van Dyke Show? Did you know that?

Brad Shreve:
No, I did not know that.

Tony Maietta:
There are a couple Dick Van Dyke shows. This is actually the most famous. He had a TV show in the 50s that was. It was a variety show and it was called the Dick Van Dyke Show. It lasted. It never sold. Basically. It didn't even last.

Tony Maietta:
It lasted one episode, never sold. We have, of course, the iconic from 1961 to 1966 Dick Van Dyke show. And then in 1971, he came back with the new Dick Van Dyke Show. And I think everybody can pretty much. This is pretty much common showbiz knowledge. Anytime you put a new into a title, it doesn't work. Don't do it. Don't do it.

Brad Shreve:
I do want to touch on that later because I do think it shows how television changed a little bit with time. After the first show, I actually didn't. I didn't know about the show. And then it popped up. I don't know where I was. I was sick for a while and was showing up on reruns. I'm like, oh, this is interesting. It wasn't as bad as I expected it.

Brad Shreve:
Was it as. Was it as exciting as the original? Absolutely not. And I think that's probably what killed it. I think it probably could have lasted longer if. If it was the first time we'd seen Dick Van Dyke.

Tony Maietta:
There were some problems with it, but, you know, it ran three seasons. Yeah, the new Dick Van Dyke Show. And here's something very interesting. It. He Filmed it in Arizona. Yeah, he was living in Arizona at the time. So it's filmed in Arizona. So I think it was a question of getting people getting their asses to Arizona.

Tony Maietta:
People like, I'm not going to Tempe to do a TV show anyway, back to the other one. So this is. This is it. This is the benchmark. This is the classic. This is the nuts and bolts. This is the Dick Van Dyke show, created by Mr. Carl Reiner, produced by Carl Reiner and Sheldon Leonard and starring Dick Van Dyke, Rosemarie Maury Amsterdam, Larry Matthews and Mary Tyler Moore.

Brad Shreve:
Tyler Moore.

Tony Maietta:
Every time I always in my head, whenever I look at the cast list, I hear that announcer saying it that way. And Mary Tyler Moore. This is. I don't know how many episodes with Mary we've done now. I have no problem with it. But this is. This. We've done.

Tony Maietta:
We've done so many. Because it's Mary. It's Mary. Also on this, also in the show. We can't forget them just because they didn't get. They didn't get billing in the credits. The opening. Richard Deacon as Mel Cooley, Ann Morgan Gilbert as Millie Helper.

Tony Maietta:
Jerry Paris, who directed also, and he directed a few episodes we're going to talk about as Jerry Helper. And of course, for seasons four and five, the Full Monty of him, so to speak. And other seasons, the back of his head. None other than Mr. Carl Reiner as Alan Brady. So, yeah, this is basically Carl Reiner. This whole thing started with Carl Reiner. This is Carl Reiner's life.

Tony Maietta:
This is. This is the story of Carl Reiner's life when he was working in the 50s with Sid Caesar and in your show of shows and Caesar's Hour, that's the impetus for all this. You knew that, right?

Brad Shreve:
Yes, I did know that. I didn't know if it. I couldn't remember if it was Milton Berle or Sid Caesar. I was pretty sure it was Sid Caesar, and I'm glad to know I was right.

Tony Maietta:
So should we. So how to approach this. It's always interesting when we approach an iconic show, you know, because there's so much to say, particularly about a show like this. Do you said you had some stats on it? Did you want to. Did you want to do that now and go over some of the. Some of like, Emmys and things like that, or do you want to wait till the end for that?

Brad Shreve:
Well, let's start by talking about how the show was different from the shows that were before it and how things changed after the show.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, I like that. You want, you want to, you want to handle that? Since you brought that up.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. It wasn't the first, first show that did this, but it was really groundbreaking in the sense that this was the one that did it best first, I think. And that is where a show was 50% home and 50% work.

Tony Maietta:
Right, right.

Brad Shreve:
Because if you, if you think before this, Father Knows Best, Ozzy and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, the mom stayed home and the dad went to work and you really never even knew what the father did. I had to look it up. Yeah, he just, it was a place that he went to and maybe they occasionally, very rarely had an episode that fit the plot as to what was going on at home. This was almost like two separate shows at times. They interlinked because as with, you know, life, sometimes your work overflows into home and vice versa. But that was really a new concept. I mean, I looked it up and I did a search to find out what other shows were do it did it. And I got George Burns and Gracie Allen, but I don't.

Brad Shreve:
That was a really a whole different format. I think this was the first one that did it.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I don't know.

Brad Shreve:
There were a couple of shows that. There were a couple shows that did more at work, but not that many.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I mean, for example, Lucy and Ricky, I mean, we knew what Ricky did for work, but we weren't. It wasn't called I Love Club Babaloo, it was called I Love Lucy, I Love Club Babaloo.

Brad Shreve:
And when they did go to the club, it was because Lucy was trying to do something and always bled over to home.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly. No, you're right about that.

Brad Shreve:
So the work did exist, but it wasn't really a, it was more of a plot device and not part of the show itself.

Tony Maietta:
Well, you know, and we've talked about this before, we've talked about the fact. You're right about that. We talked about this before. But you realize that the show actually started out to be. It was going to be more 70, 30, 70% work, 30% home. And the reason it became 40%, 50% was of course, the genius comic actress they hired to play Laura Petrie. And they realized, oh wow, we have gold with this woman, this young woman, this 23 year old woman that the network didn't want. Well, exactly, that feature her.

Tony Maietta:
We need to feature her more, of course. And that also caused some problems with the other actress in the show, which we'll talk about. But yeah, you're absolutely right. I Think this probably one of the first, I hate to be declarative with, like this is the first, but one of the first certainly to feature a work life, home life kind of situation.

Brad Shreve:
Exactly. And it's interesting because the transition from this show to I'm going to use the Mary Tyler Moore Show, I see that as like this big transition. Because the Mary Tyler Moore show, if you think when it began it was a work life balance and that's when I thought it was best. And then when we lost Rhoda and then especially when we lost Phyllis, it became totally a work environment. You know, all our friends were from work and that led into Taxi and Cheers and Barney Miller. So we got this whole new era of work centered shows. And so Dick Van Dyke was kind of like this transition phase.

Tony Maietta:
I agree with you. That's very true. And the reason is because, as I said, this show is based on Carl Reiner's real life experiences working on your show of shows in the 50s. Because we have even to the characters, Buddy Sorrell, Maury Amsterdam. You want to take a guess at who Buddy Sorrell is based on by any chance? We've talked about him many times.

Brad Shreve:
Well, knowing, knowing the people that wrote the show, which were. Was an incredible bunch. I'm going to guess he is Mel Brooks.

Tony Maietta:
That's right. He's based on Mel Brooks. Yeah, you know, the joke machine. Constant, constant boom, boom, rat a tat tat rat a tat Melbourne. And he's Jewish.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
We have Sally Rogers, who's based in part on Selma diamond and on Lucille Callan, who wrote for your show of shows and for Caesar's Hour. And of course we have Alan Brady. But Alan Brady is not based on Sid Caesar. Carl Reiner was very adamant about that because Alan Brady. If you've watched this show, you must have watched the show because otherwise, why are you listening to this? Alan Brady's a real pain in the ass. I mean, he's an obnoxious, opinionated, bombastic, he's very funny. And Carl Reiner is brilliant. That wasn't Sid Caesar.

Tony Maietta:
Sid Caesar was much more, much more willing to work with people. He was a much more approachable man. Reiner said he based Alan Brady more on Jackie Gleason or Milton Berle, who had reputations for being that kind of bombastic, arrogant kind of character.

Brad Shreve:
And that's why I kind of thought about Milton Berle, because I knew his reputation.

Tony Maietta:
So yeah, I mean, that's it exactly. But it's interesting because another reason why I think this show is so fascinating. And maybe we can talk about this later on, but I just don't think you can escape the Kennedy connection with this show. I mean, first of all, the day Kennedy was inaugurated was the very first day of production on the Dick Van Dyke show, the very first episode of the series. And how can you possibly escape the connection between Laura Petrie and Jackie Kennedy? I mean, same hairstyle. I mean it's. And Rob has a very jfk. I mean it's.

Tony Maietta:
Don't. Do you get the Kennedy thing with this show?

Brad Shreve:
I absolutely do. And it's not just the hairstyle. Mary and Jackie, both beautiful women and very similar looking in some ways very different, but both beautiful.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. I mean, I just, I think that you can't escape the Kennedy. The Kennedy. This is the Kennedys in a sitcom, if you want to put it that way. But it was also Carl Reiner's family.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Do we want to talk a little bit about the background and how the, the idea for this show came about?

Brad Shreve:
Well, I know about the pilot, but I don't know the in depth about the background, so I'm going to let you carry that one.

Tony Maietta:
Well, basically, and there's not a lot to it, basically what happened was after he finished working with Sid Caesar in the 50s, Carl Reiner was being offered all these sitcoms to star in and he didn't like any of them. So his wife, Estelle Reiner, who we just talked about in what Harry Met Sally, she's the famous I'll have what she's having woman, Rob Reiner's mother, Carl Reiner's wife said, why don't you write one yourself? Hey Ryder, why don't you write one yourself? And he thought about, okay, what can I write about? What is it that I is particular about my life that I can write about? Well, hello, I worked on a live TV show, so maybe I should write about that. And that's exactly what happened. So he wrote a pilot called Head of the Family in which he played a TV writer whose name was Rob Petrie, Laura Petrie, Buddy Sorrell, Sally Rogers and Richie were. They were all in the pilot. However, the character of Alan Brady's name in the pilot was Alan Sturdy, not Alan Brady. So he made this pilot called Head of the Family, which we watched. And what do you think the main problem, the pilot didn't sell.

Tony Maietta:
As Brad said, put it out there, it didn't sell. And what do you think the main problem with the pilot was, Brad?

Brad Shreve:
There are several things. First of all, I don't know If I've ever seen a pilot where not a single person ended up being the same person in the series. And I don't think any of the actors had the same. I didn't like Sally. I didn't like any of the actors in their roles nearly as much. I think that may have been part of the problem. I know the network thought it was Carl.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. That was where I was going with it. Yeah. The main problem. The main problem with Head of the Family was, as Sheldon Leonard said, you got the wrong actor playing you. It was Carl Reiner. The network thought he was too New York. I.

Tony Maietta:
E. Too. What's the word? Too Jewish. They didn't like it. It made. It made him very uncomfortable. They wanted white bread America. But.

Tony Maietta:
So what happened was that Sheldon Leonard read Carl Reiner had written 13 scripts of this. Of this show, thinking, hey, I got a new TV show that didn't sell. And. And he loved what he read. He thought it was a wonderfully written show. And he said that, you know, Carl said, but I don't. So he offered to do it for Carl, you know, to produce it with Carl. And Carl said, I don't want to fail.

Tony Maietta:
And that's when Sheldon said, you won'. I'll get a better actor to play you. And that's where they went. They went on that premise, and they were going to use, basically the premise of Head of the Family, recast it completely. As you said, none of these actors are the same, and it became the Dick Van Dyke Show. So that's kind of the shorthand of how the Dick Van Dyke show came about.

Brad Shreve:
And I know we're not going too deep into the pilot, but I want to tell you what the absolute worst thing about the pilot was to me.

Tony Maietta:
What is that?

Brad Shreve:
That little boy, Richie, should have been sent off to military school. He was the most obnoxious, horrible child I've ever seen on television.

Tony Maietta:
Did you really think so? I thought he was kind of cute.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, my God. He looked cute. But. And it's not the kid's fault the way they wrote this kid.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
No, it's just. Oh, he was an awful child.

Tony Maietta:
He's not. He's nowhere near. He's nowhere near as adorable as Larry Matthews. I mean, what kid? What kid is this poor kid? He was played by a little actor named Gary Morgan. And, yeah, my idea was that he was a little too loud. Here's the thing I don't like about the pilot. And so the. Basically, the story of the pilot is, is that Richie is embarrassed by What Rob does for a living.

Tony Maietta:
So he says he didn't go to college. You're not Mickey Mantle. He's just not impressed with the fact that he's a comedy writer. So Rob takes him to work with him and witnesses him at work, and he's even less impressed. But then he goes to school and he sees this po. Everybody's gathered around, all the kids are gathering around laughing at this poem that someone wrote, and it was Rob. And suddenly his father's a hero because he made his friends laugh and he's really funny. So that's basically the nuts and bolts of the pilot.

Tony Maietta:
It's cute. It was kind of partially remade as the episode Father of the Week on the Dick Van Dyke Show. So if you see that episode, that's kind of the pilot, I agree with you. I'm not crazy about the kid. I'm not. What I don't like, what I think is interesting about it is it's a. It's a one camera show with a laugh track. It's not a studio audience.

Tony Maietta:
And what I love about the Dick Van Dyke show is at this time in particular, it was one of the very few shows that was still filming with a studio audience like Lucy. Most shows at this time were one camera with Andy Griffith, perfect example, Beverly Hillbillies, one camera laugh track. And that's what Head of the Family is. And I think that, I mean, besides the fact that, you know, Carl Reiner's not really a leading man. I love Carl Reiner, but he's not really the leading man.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, yeah.

Tony Maietta:
That's one of the problems with it, don't you think?

Brad Shreve:
You know? Well, also, and I said I wasn't wild about Rosa Marie, the guy that played Buddy. I'm sure the actor is fine, but Buddy was written very differently. He was like a neurotic, only 23.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And he was neurotic and just a totally different character. Just. It was a different man with a different personality with the same name.

Tony Maietta:
Do you know the actress who played Sally in the pilot was.

Brad Shreve:
No, I couldn't. I couldn't picture. I know the. The actor that played Buddy. I don't know his name, but he's been in a lot of stuff. But I don't know her.

Tony Maietta:
The actress who played. This is interesting. The actress who played Sally in the pilot was Sylvia Miles. Sylvia Miles was in Midnight Cowboy.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, I can.

Tony Maietta:
Sex and the City. She was a very. Yeah, she's pretty, pretty well known New York based actress. Sylvia Miles. Yes. And she lived forever. But you kind of see the Rosemary. Ish.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
You know, you can see why they wanted Rosemary. So. Yeah, so that was the pilot. They said, we want another actor to play you. We're going to do this. So they looked for another actor to play the Rob Petrie now, not Petri Petri in the pilot. And they came up with an actor. There were two actors.

Tony Maietta:
One of the actors we'll get to in a minute. But there was another actor who was up for the part of Rob Petrie. And they decided they couldn't go with him. And that's a good thing they didn't because a year later he got a job on a show called the Tonight show. And he held that job for about 30 years. Can you imagine Johnny Carson as Rob Petrie? Yeah, he was. He was up for it. They were very serious about Johnny Carson for this part.

Brad Shreve:
Wow. And it's hard for me, even I know Johnny was an actor. It's just hard for me to picture that because I'm so used to him behind that desk.

Tony Maietta:
It's. It's interesting. They felt he was a little too put together. He was a little too much.

Brad Shreve:
I can see that.

Tony Maietta:
He certainly knew comedy. Hello, he's Johnny Carson. So that made sense. But when they saw it, they thought, he's a little too put together. So they decided to go with their other choice, a young Broadway actor. Youngish Broadway actor, he was 36 by this time, named Dick Van Dyke, who just celebrated his hundredth birthday in December. Isn't that amazing? Still with us? I hate to say that. I don't want to jinx anything.

Tony Maietta:
Still with us, that is.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, still with us.

Tony Maietta:
What do you think about. I think personally, for me, the main reason this show works so well is the cast. And I think you have to start right at the top. And it's absolutely 100% it's Dick Van Dyke. I mean, Dick Van Dyke. Has there ever been a more charming, goofy, lovable Stan Laurel type actor besides Stan Laurel in sound than Dick Van Dyke?

Brad Shreve:
You know, this is gonna sound terrible. I love Dick Van Dyke in the Dick Van Dyke Show. I am not fond of him in other things and it's because he's very Hamish. But I think it's because he's doing the whole Stan Laurel thing and I'm not. That's not to knock him as an actor. I think he's brilliant as an actor.

Tony Maietta:
Well, you know, it's such a perfect melding of actor and role that I think that probably in the Dick Van Dyke show, it gets. You can Kind of buy it. He's playing a comedy writer, he's got to do his bits.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
He's just a natural comedian, you know, totally untrained. Never had a singing lesson, never had a dancing lesson, never had an acting lesson.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Started out as a comedian doing dumb acts. Dumb acts are miming to records. He ended up with a seven year contract with cbs. And he could never really catch the right thing, the right. The right role. He had variety shows, he did a kid show, he did a morning show with Walter Cronkite. I mean, he was trying to find. They knew they had something, they just weren't sure how to showcase it.

Tony Maietta:
And so what he did was he went to New York because he had a family to support, and he did a Broadway show. And then he auditioned for a show called Bye Bye Birdie. And that was it. Bye Bye Birdie was the role in the show that finally, finally put Dick Van Dyke on the map. And he won a Tony Award for, for Dick, for Bye Bye Birdie. He did the film later. And while he was doing Bye Bye Birdie, Sheldon Leonard saw him and said, that's our Rob Petrie. And that's how that started because he was doing Bye Bye Birdie on Broadway.

Tony Maietta:
It brought him back, back to sitcom land.

Brad Shreve:
I didn't know about the children's show. He's such a playful individual. I would think he would have been great in a children's show.

Tony Maietta:
Well, he's such a Gumby. You know what I mean? He has no, he has no spine. Dick Van Dyke, that's the amazing thing about him. He's like Conan Ombre, you know, he's nine feet of legs and he's just so pliable and movable. He's Gumby. And the wonderful thing about Dick Van Dyke is. And you can, you can boil this, the essence of this show down to its opening. Now, the original opening wasn't Rob coming in and tripping over an ottoman.

Tony Maietta:
It was actually a bunch of pictures. But they decided they needed a new opening for the second year. And on the fly, they came up with a tripping over the ottoman thing. But the key is, is that Rob comes in. Yeah, he's a, you know, he's a goof. He's a klutz. He's tripping. He trips over the ottoman, but he's smiling.

Tony Maietta:
He gets up and he's happy. And that is the essence of the Dick Van Dyke Show. But what they're saying is, yeah, life can knock you down. There's a whole lot of ottomans you're gonna trip over in your life, but you gotta get up smiling and keep going. And I think that kind of optimism is the essence, is the essence of this show. Don't you think so?

Brad Shreve:
Yes. Yes. I wanna talk about Rob and Laura, please, because that is, to me, what really made it happen. You know, we talked about Green Acres and how Oliver and Lisa just had a very sexual, not a very sensual loving relationship that you typically did not see in television. And Rob and Laura were pretty close.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that's exactly what you're. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right.

Brad Shreve:
The chemistry between the two was just like, wow.

Tony Maietta:
You believe. Even though they sleep in separate beds, because, hello, it's 1961. We hadn't gotten there yet. Even though they sleep in separate beds, you believe these two people have sex? There is.

Brad Shreve:
You believe they have sex and you believe they like each other. And it's not just a formality of two people that live together because one does a house and one goes to work. There's more than that.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. And Mary Tyler Moore said that. She said, you know, she liked Dick Van Dyke the minute she saw him. And clearly, same thing, he liked her. And they just were just in each other's. They were in each other's company. They were on each other's team from day one. That's what I'm trying to say.

Tony Maietta:
And they believed in each other and they encouraged each other. And I totally believe that. I think that the sexual chemistry between them. I don't think since Lucy and Desi were. Was there a couple on television that so clearly had great, great affection for each other. Now, it was real for Lucy and Dessi. But, you know, people thought. People were so convinced that.

Tony Maietta:
That Dick Van Dyke and Mary Charlie Moore were actually married that their real life spouses would get grief because everybody thought they were married to each other. In fact, it got to the point where when we talked about this during one of our Mary Tyler Moore episodes, Dick Van Dyke did a special in 1969 called Dick Van Dyke and the Other Woman. Because people were constantly coming up to him thinking he was married to Mary Tyler Moore. And we'd have to introduce his real wife as his wife, not another woman. You know, people thought he was cheating on Mary Tyler Moore. So it's very funny. That's how real that relationship was to people.

Brad Shreve:
That doesn't surprise me in the least. Whatsoever. Whatsoever.

Tony Maietta:
So, speaking of Rob and Laura, let's talk a little bit about the woman who played Laura.

Speaker C:
Now.

Tony Maietta:
We've talked a lot about Mary Tyler Moore. I'm not complaining at all. So if you want more of Mary Tyler Moore, we got two episodes in the back and Ordinary People. But I think it's important as far as this show goes, just to, you know where Mary Tyler Moore was. Mary Tyler Moore was 23 years old when this thing started. 23. She had to lie about her age because Dick van Dyke was 36 and. And they were a little bit worried that, oh, this might seem a little too icky.

Tony Maietta:
So she said, oh, but I'm 26. And then later on they found out she was really 23. So I guess those three years made all the difference. I don't know. But anyway, she was only 23.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
She had begun her TV work as Happy Hot Point and Hot Point work. Kitchen appliances. She was a little sprite in a unitard. A little sprite. Happy Hot Points. And then she got pregnant and she had to quit the job.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
So she then her. Her. Her first real TV job in a show was on this show called Richard Diamond Private Detective. And she played his secretary and her name was Sam. But you just heard her. You just saw her legs and heard this sultry voice that she put on. And then one day she went and asked for a raise. And they said, you know what? We can get anybody to do this with a good pair of legs.

Tony Maietta:
Bye, Mary Tyler Moore. So she lost her child.

Brad Shreve:
Oh.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, Hollywood. So, so Hollywood. And then. But what's really interesting is, so she was getting very frustrated. She had auditioned for a role on the Danny Thomas show as Danny's older daughter, and it was between her and one other girl. And Danny Thomas said, it can't be you, Mary Tyler Moore with your nose. No one would believe you were my daughter. No one would believe that.

Tony Maietta:
So she has a little tiny nose. And of course, Danny Thomas. No one would believe this nose, begat that nose. So she didn't get it. But Danny Thomas and Sheldon Leonard were the producers on the Dick Van Dyke show, even though Danny Thomas isn't credited. And when they were thinking of casting Laura Petrie, they were running out of actresses. And Sheldon Leonard said, can you think of any more actresses? And Danny Thomas went, more, more. Mary Tyler called her in.

Tony Maietta:
How Things Happen sometimes, called her in, and Carl Reiner said, the minute she said hello, he knew she was right for the role. He said it was just one of those things where she was so perfect for this part. And that's how an icon was born, ladies and gentlemen, because of a mist. Because her nose was not big enough for Danny Thomas's daughter. And because of her last name, it's, that's the way that's Hollywood. That's how Hollywood works sometimes.

Brad Shreve:
And watching these episodes, I want to say why I think Mary Tyler Moore is so beloved. Okay, she's gorgeous, she's sexy, she's sophisticated, but at the same time she's cute.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
So that makes her approachable.

Tony Maietta:
America's sweetheart. America's sexy sweetheart.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Well, you know, and she is sexy. And you know, that's. That leads us well into some of the things I want to talk about, some myth busters and some tidbits before we get into the episodes. We will get into these episodes, ladies and gentlemen, but you know how I like to bust some myths and give out some tidbits. And one of the things I want to bust and one of the things, some of the tidbits is the fact that despite what people say, Mary Tyler Moore was not the first actress on TV to wear pants. Actresses before Mary Tyler Moore wore pants. Lucy wore pants. Just watch My Love.

Brad Shreve:
Lucy wore pants. Yes, I remember that, you know, but

Tony Maietta:
Lucy's pants were much more utilitarian. Lucy wore pants because she was going to have to do some physical bit of comedy. That's also why she had stirrups, to keep the pants straight so they wouldn't go up her leg. So Lucy wore pants. Lots of actresses wore pants. What Mary Tyler Moore wore were Capri pants. And they were tight fitting capri pants. And that's what got everybody up in arms was the fact that she was 23 years old, gorgeous, sexy dancer, and she's in these Capri pants.

Tony Maietta:
And both the sponsors and CBS were like, she can't be wearing pants. And Mary really went to the map for this. She's like, I don't know. Mary Tyler Moore was a housewife. She had a child. She goes, when I'm working around my house and cleaning, I'm not in pearls and a skirt and a dress. I'm in pants. So she really fought for this.

Tony Maietta:
So they came to an agreement and the agreement was she could wear pants once per episode if it was appropriate for the scene. And they had to be careful that the pants didn't cup under. That was actually part of the agreement. They were looking for cuppage. They didn't want to see him hugging her ass. They had to be sure of that.

Brad Shreve:
But, and you know, I was kind of disappointed. The, the four episodes that we watched there were, I, I can't recall any scenes with her wearing the pants. Because, again, that's part of what I thought the appeal was and part of what made this seem real. It wasn't June Cleaver. She was always wearing a dress in these episodes and a very boring one, I should say. But, yeah, when she was doing things around the house, she looked like a person doing things around the house. Granted, not every woman could wear capri pants like Mary Tyler Moore could. But you could see somebody work around the house in those.

Tony Maietta:
Well, yeah, absolutely. It makes perfect sense because women weren't cleaning their houses with pearls in dresses like June Cleaver, like Donna Reed. I mean, it just. It makes sense. And she looks fabulous in the capri pants. And they began an entire. You know, not only were people not offended by the capri pants, it caused a nationwide furor for capri pants. They became huge.

Tony Maietta:
So, hello, you know, it's TV in the 60s. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Some of the other tidbits I just want to throw out there. And we haven't had one all season. Now we're into our third episode here. We gotta have one, Brad. We haven't had it.

Brad Shreve:
Here comes Lucy moment.

Tony Maietta:
We haven't had a Lucy moment.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Now, we had a little bit of a Lucy moment just a few seconds ago, but this is the real Lucy moment for this episode. Because the Dick Van Dyke show was filmed at Desilu Coanga.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Lucille Ball was the landlord. Was the Dick Van Dyke Show's landlord. She owned the studio. And Mary Tyler Moore told the story of. They would be rehearsing a scene and suddenly they would hear the sound of laughter from way up above. And not just any laughter. They'd hear, you know, that unmistakable Lucille Ball laugh.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Lucy would be up in the catwalks up above, watching. And she said one time, Lucy came down, took her aside and said, you're very good, and walked away. And Mary said it was like winning 10 Oscars to get that kind of.

Brad Shreve:
Well, my God, can you imagine?

Tony Maietta:
Can you imagine? So, yeah, that's. I think it's a beautiful story. It goes to prove it busts. Busts a myth. Bust a myth. It busts a myth about Lucille Ball that she didn't like talented people. Lucy loved talented people, appreciated talent. I think it's a beautiful story.

Tony Maietta:
And I love the fact that the Dick Van Dyke show filmed on the same lot as I Love Lucy. It's kind of like a passing of the baton. It's a beautiful, beautiful story.

Brad Shreve:
So I have a suggestion. I think it's something that we need to do. We need to change the name of this podcast to the Lucy Connection.

Tony Maietta:
You said that before. Well, you know.

Brad Shreve:
Did I?

Tony Maietta:
The numbers. The numbers go up when we talk about Lucy. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Anyway, I have just one more tidbit. One more tidbit, and it's not involving Lucy. We had our Lucy moment. It's over.

Tony Maietta:
And then we're getting to these episodes. Really, we are. Did you know that the Dick Van Dyke show was canceled at the end of its first year? Did you know that?

Brad Shreve:
I know the ratings weren't all that great. It was pretty low. So it doesn't surprise me. And I'm anxious to hear why they kept it.

Tony Maietta:
Well, yes, because it originally aired on Tuesdays opposite that joggernaut, not bonanza, Perry Como. You can't beat Perry Como. You can't. I'm telling you right now. Yes, the show was 80th in the ratings. Eight, zero, 80 in the ratings. And it was canceled. Now there's a couple different stories about how it got un.

Tony Maietta:
Canceled. CBS canceled it. One of the stories, and I think the one that I like the best, is that Sheldon Leonard. See, and this is. We talked about this earlier and this was the time when sponsors really were more important than networks and shows. They really were. You know, you had product placement. Sponsors were basically responsible for shows.

Tony Maietta:
Dick Van Dyke was sponsored by Procter and Gamble. Apparently, Sheldon Leonard flew to New York and gave such an impassioned speech to Procter and Gamble that they agreed to come back as sponsors, but they would only sponsor half of it. He had to find another sponsor to sponsor the other 15 minutes. And he was able to get Kent cigarettes. So he went back to CBS and said, we have our two sponsors. Would you please do me a favor and move us so we have a chance to get out of Perry Como's shadow? And they did. They moved it to Wednesday nights for its second year after a little show called the Beverly Hillbillies. So with the Beverly Hillbillies as its lead in, it shot up to the top 10 immediately.

Tony Maietta:
And it pretty much stayed there throughout its entire run. Isn't that amazing?

Brad Shreve:
That is pretty amazing. And because today, a show that was that low in the ratings would never made it a full. Cuz what, There were probably 30 episodes back then. It would never have made it past three. It would never have given.

Tony Maietta:
No, I know.

Brad Shreve:
They just don't give shows a chance. And we were going to go straight into the episode, but it leads me into thinking about the shows that were topped during that time period from that five year period that they ran. When that show started, it was as typical of that era. It was variety shows and mostly westerns. You had Bonanza, you had Gun Smoke, you had have Gun with Travel, you had Wagon Train. These were the biggies. And then by the time it ended, you still had the variety shows. You still had Red Skelton and some of the others.

Brad Shreve:
But then you had the rural comedies, Beverly Hillbillies, Andy Griffith Show. This show kind of was different than all the others. And we had Bewitched, but it wasn't really that high on the list. Compared to some of these others, this kind of stood out.

Tony Maietta:
What's really interesting is, is that this show is kind of like the anti Beverly Hillbillies. So it's kind of a perfect pairing. You spend half an hour with the Clampets doing crazy things in Beverly Hills. Then you get sophisticated and you go spend half an hour with the Petris in New Rochelle in New York. And I think it's a wonderful compliment. You know, the Beverly Hillbillies wasn't the huge hit. They weren't like, oh, let's put this with a real big hit. The Beverly Hillbillies had just started.

Tony Maietta:
So it was purely luck the Beverly Hillbillies caught fire and that led into the Dick Van Dyke Show. But I think people also discovered the brilliant writing, this incredible chemistry this cast had that just puts the funny, funny situations and just. It was an adult. I heard somebody say that it was the first sitcom rated A for adult and I absolutely believe that.

Brad Shreve:
Very true.

Tony Maietta:
After years of Leave it to Beaver and years of Father Knows Best and I love her very much, but Lucy and her shenanigans, we actually had a sophisticated show, an urbane, sophisticated show. And I think that's another reason why this show is survives as long as it does.

Brad Shreve:
You are 100% correct there. I agree with you as well. All right, so maybe we should talk about the episodes we watched. I didn't want to watch them for nothing.

Tony Maietta:
We're finally going to get in the episodes. I'm sorry, but you know, I am. We're finally getting in these episodes. And as Brad said, we each picked two. I picked two, he picked two. So ironically, or as it works out, Brad has the first two and I have the second two. And what I love is, is that we have one. The show was on for five years and we have one from season two, season three, season four and season five.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, we don't have one from season one. We have the pilot, if you want to count that. But we do have four separate seasons. I don't know if we've ever done that before because we. We just pick.

Tony Maietta:
We just pick. We didn't. We didn't give each other hints or anything. I didn't say a word. I said you pick the ones you want. I didn't give him any suggestions.

Brad Shreve:
I know you didn't persuade. Try to persuade me, which is very unusual. I was able to pick. In fact, I picked before you did.

Tony Maietta:
You did? You did. Because I wasn't sure. There were so many. Again, I didn't know. So I'm going to introduce them, I'm going to give the stats, and then we're going to talk about the episodes. So the first episode up from season two, episode seven, number 37 in the series is called what's in a Middle Name? It's directed by John Rich, written by Carl Reiner, and it aired on November 7, 1962.

Tony Maietta:
All right, Brad, you're up. This is yours. Why'd you pick this one? Why'd you pick what's in a Middle name?

Brad Shreve:
I can tell you the reason I picked both of the two episodes I have not seen the Dick Van Tyke show in years. I used to watch it religiously, but it's been ages. And these were the two. I was nervous because I remember them really well, but maybe they aren't as funny as I remembered. So. But I said, those are the two I remember. I must remember them for a reason. And those are the reasons I picked.

Brad Shreve:
And I remember thinking that this one, the whole premise was so clever, and I was right.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
The whole.

Tony Maietta:
It is cute. It is cute.

Speaker C:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
The premise is that Richie digs into his father's desk, which I'm amazed that they just kind of told him, don't do that anymore. But he dug in the desk and he found his birth certificate, and he learned that he was not just Richie Petrie, Richard Petrie, that his middle name for the first time, he learned, was Rosebud. And why did he get a sissy name for Rosebud?

Tony Maietta:
And so the episode's a flashback as to how he got saddled with the name Rosebud. You know what I love about this episode is the fact that as a kid, did you not go through your parents, your mother, or your father's desk and find things that maybe you shouldn't have seen? I know I did. I. I remember I was the nose all the time.

Brad Shreve:
I'm still a nosy, nosy son of a. So, yes, I was in everything.

Tony Maietta:
I was in that. I found things. I found my grandmother's death certificate and found out she had been remarried after my grandfather died, and nobody bothered to tell you, well, hello, Italian Catholics. That's what they did. They didn't. They didn't get. They didn't bother to get divorced. She just.

Tony Maietta:
So anyway, I love that premise. I love the fact that that. That's a very relatable thing that parents go through with their kids. Kids are nosy and you gotta be careful what you leave unlocked. And I love that premise.

Brad Shreve:
I agree with you. The one difference is I never went to my parents and said, hey, I went through your desk, and this is what I did.

Tony Maietta:
I was like, why does Grandma have a different last name? Oh, okay.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, there you go.

Tony Maietta:
So Richie did it, and he found out that his name was indeed Richie Rosebud Petrie. And why does he have such a sissy name? And so they have to figure out how they're going to tell Richie how he came up with this name. And that's what the show's about. It's a flashback to. Will you tell it, Brad? It's your episode. It's a. You tell you.

Brad Shreve:
Well, this is actually of the four episodes we chose, three of them are. The major part of it is that they're flashbacks, which I found interesting that we both picked at random. And that's what we got is a flashback to when Laura was pregnant or with child. I don't even think they said with child, but Laura was pregnant with Richie. And they were talking about names and everybody had an opinion of what the baby's name should be. And they kind of all assumed. I think a girl's name only came up once. But other than that, it was all assumed that this was going to be a boy, which is rather convenient.

Brad Shreve:
So everybody had an idea of what the name would be, from the grandfather to Rob's parents to Laura's parents. And there were all these arguments about what the boy's name were. And it was Oscar. Did you catch the name Oscar Sam?

Tony Maietta:
They had Robert, Oscar, Sam, Edward, Benjamin, Ulysses and David. Those were all the suggestions everybody had. And if there was a female, then it would be the female version of that.

Brad Shreve:
So, yeah, Ulyssia. Ulysses grandfather is the only one that acknowledged it might be a girl. And he said, if it's not Ulysses, it will be Ulyssia, which lovely name. And so then resolve everybody, calm everybody down. He took the first letter of each of those names and made the acronym Rosebud.

Tony Maietta:
And that's how Richie got his middle name of Rosebud.

Brad Shreve:
And I just thought that was. That was just really clever writing. I will say that I was really surprised when I watched it because I remembered that there were a lot more people in the scene with the argument. And I remember the argument was a much longer thing. I just remembered it was just chaos and mania and hysterical. It was still funny, but it wasn't what I remembered. But I really enjoyed it because I thought it was well done.

Tony Maietta:
It was cute. You know, I loved the fact that they had the entire Petri me in. We find out Laura's maiden name is Meehan families. So we get to meet her parents, we get to meet Rob's parents, and we get to meet Grandpa, and Grandpa's there too. Because they needed another name. They needed another initial for Rose Bud. And I think now I'm not positive because I didn't go through every single episode and watch them to see, but I think this is the only time we saw Laura's parents. Maybe not.

Tony Maietta:
Maybe I'm wrong about that. So listeners, if I'm wrong, let me know. But I like the fact that we get to see the parents. I know for sure it was the only time we saw Rob's grandfather. I know that. And he was one of. He was the stereotypical, you know. Oh, he reminded me of Dick Van Dyke and Mary Poppins playing the old banker, didn't he?

Brad Shreve:
Yes, he did.

Tony Maietta:
That's what he based his characterization in Mary Poppins.

Brad Shreve:
I wonder if he did, because it was. It was practically the same man.

Tony Maietta:
It's a cute. It's cute episode. It's a very cute episode.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I thought it was very cute.

Tony Maietta:
Should we go on to the next one?

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, let's go to the next one.

Tony Maietta:
We're gonna sail through these. So the next one is the X. The next one is Indeed from season three, episode 28. It's 90 in the series and it's called October Eve, and it's directed by Jerry Paris, written by Bill Persky and Sam Denoff, and it aired April 8, 1964.

Brad Shreve:
Well, tell me about. First, I want to say that, you know, we talked about the Seven Year Itch and how it was a movie about sex, but wasn't. But they never had sex.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
This was the movie about Laura being naked, but they never mentioned she was naked.

Tony Maietta:
Right?

Brad Shreve:
Right. I thought that was so. Because it's actually quite risque for its time.

Tony Maietta:
It was. And speaking of the Seven Year Itch, we're going to have another Seven Year Itch illusion coming up in a Bit. But isn't it interesting that in the Seven Year Itch, eight years before it, the audience couldn't think that Marilyn's character was naked, so they had to put a bathing suit on her. Eight years later, we get the idea that Laura Petrie, she didn't pose naked, but this is a naked painting of her. And I thought that was kind of. That's progress, folks. That's progress.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. And what the premise of this episode is, is. I'm just going to cut to the flashback. Well, I know Sally calls Laura, because Sally's in a art gallery and she looks at this painting and you just see her looking at it like, oh, my God. So she calls Laura, Laura goes running to the gallery, and there is a painting of Laura bucknaked. So she has to explain to Sally that when she and Rob were first married, that she went to get a painting done for $50 of herself for Rob as a gift because he gave her an outfit and mentioned he'd love to see a painting with her in it. And when the artist. It was a quirky artist, and when he was done with it, she looked at it and he had her face.

Brad Shreve:
But he. He painted beyond her clothing.

Tony Maietta:
His interpretation.

Brad Shreve:
His interpretation of her, which was. Again, they never said it, but it was quite obvious she was naked. And what I love is when she is showing, when she's saying, I wore my clothes, I posed for you like this. She is putting her arms. It's like the front end of the car, the little ornamen. She has her arms back with her breasts thrust forward. And you can picture Laura naked with this pose.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, like a roll.

Brad Shreve:
I thought that was really something. They got away with that because they never mentioned that. They never mentioned that was. She was naked. And so after seeing the painting in the museum, she goes to Rob, because this is in a museum, this is at an art gallery. And she has to confess what happened because she was too embarrassed as a newlywed to tell him that she had been painted naked. So she confesses it to him. And Rob is the most loving, understanding man.

Brad Shreve:
He laughs it off that, you know, the guy's an artist. What can you expect of artist? And as soon as Laura walks out of the room, he grabs the grills on the gas stove and his hands come up and he is ready to thrust him against the wall. He is not a happy fellow.

Tony Maietta:
It's a great scene.

Brad Shreve:
So. And she does explain through a flashback again, that when she saw the painting, that she picked up something. I don't know if it was paint. Or fluid, whatever. She picked something and she threw it at the painting. I'm kind of thinking she destroyed it. And she stormed out the door. And he immediately said, oh, I'll just clean it.

Brad Shreve:
As she walked away not knowing. So he just picked up a rag and like, oh, I can fix it, you know, and obviously he fixed it right away. Yeah, that's why she never was worried about it. So Rob goes down to the gallery to check it out and he's trying to be nonchalant about it. And people are one guy sketching the painting. So Rob confronts the artist and the painting is for sale for $5,000 and he has three bidders on it. And the guy says, I'm an art, you know, I'm an artist. We'll go to the best place.

Brad Shreve:
Unless somebody has a higher bid.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And so they're like, can Rob afford to pay $5,000 for a painting? Well, that only lasts about a second because they just. There's no way they can afford 5,000. So do you want to explain how they, how they resolved the problem?

Tony Maietta:
Yes. They realize they own the painting because Laura actually paid for it before she saw it. She gave him 50 bucks and she got a hand painted receipt. She doesn't know where the receipt is. And Rob goes, that doesn't matter. He doesn't need to know that. He just knows that we own it. So Rob goes to his studio and who.

Tony Maietta:
Who plays Sir Guy?

Brad Shreve:
I would. I was Carl Reiner looking at Carl Reiner. Was that Carl? Oh my God. I'm embarrassed because he looked so different and I'm going crazy. My first thought was Carl Reiner. And then I thought, no, that's not him.

Tony Maietta:
Carl Reiner.

Brad Shreve:
So now I'm embarrassed. I didn't know.

Tony Maietta:
With a fabulous Eastern European accent. So they go to the. So Rob goes to his studio and says, oh, by the way, P.S. we own this, so there's no problem here. And he says, but I will give you. Because I'm such a nice guy and I'm Rob Petrie, I'll give you this option if you pick the option. Of the three people who could buy this painting, one was a guy who wanted to buy a painting and put it in a castle on a mountaintop in. I don't think it was Brazil or somewhere way far away.

Brad Shreve:
It was Brazil.

Tony Maietta:
And another one was at a gallery in New York. And the other one was.

Brad Shreve:
Anyway, the World's Fair.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, the World's Fair. That was. The other was the World's Fair. And he says, if you give it to the. If you sell it to the guy in Brazil on the mountaintop, we'll let you have it. And so that's how they come to the understanding. So he's not. Doesn't destroy the painting.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And. And Sir Guy loves this. He thinks Rob's a great guy. And that's how they come to the end of it. And then they paint another. He's painting another portrait of Laura, which, again, they're letting him do it again. And they show it at the end, and it looks like some kind of Pablo Picasso thing. But at least she has clothes on.

Tony Maietta:
At least she has clothes on.

Brad Shreve:
And that is something I really loved about the episode as well, because it didn't end with them destroying the painting. The painting still exists. And it was supposed to be a beautiful painting. Yeah. We never got to see it.

Tony Maietta:
It exists in some mountain Brazil, in some mansion. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And who knows, today it may be in a museum in D.C. for all we know. Or somewhere. Somewhere in Paris. But. So Laura's painting did still exist. So that's why I remembered that.

Tony Maietta:
Well.

Brad Shreve:
And I remember thinking, boy, that's really something.

Tony Maietta:
You know, it's a great episode. I love this episode because, you know, it's based on a real oil painting called September morn from 1911. Did you know that? Not the Neil diamond song, an actual painting called September Morn. And I also like this episode. There's a couple reasons why I love this episode. I love this episode because of the. What you talked about with Dick Van Dyke and the stove. You know, when he grabs the stove and he has that wonderful take and he picks up the burners from the gas stove and he breaks the coffee because he's acting all cool and nonchalant about it.

Tony Maietta:
And then Laura leaves and he goes crazy. Again, the brilliance of Dick Van Dyke's physical comedy.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
And they said they thought, you know, there's another episode which we'll mention at the end of the show, which they thought was the longest laugh, but someone said they thought this was the longest laugh, but it doesn't seem like a long laugh because it goes to a commercial. I love that take. And I also love the fact that this is one of the very few episodes that involve Laura and Sally together. Yes, they're together in the first part. And we talked a bit about the. The. The tension between Mary Tyler Lamore and. And Rosemarie, because when Rosemarie was hired, she was the second person hired for this show after Dick Van Dyke.

Tony Maietta:
And she even said, what's a Dick Van Dyke, she was the second person hired. And when she was hired, it was going to be the workplace comedy, Less at Home. And in Mary Tyler Moore, they discovered they had this incredibly gifted, beautiful comedienne at their disposal. The balance shifted and, you know, Rosemarie was a little miffed about that. So they both freely admitted to having tension at times during the show. They were always very cordial and professional. They worked together, but they weren't buddies, you know, later on in life. They became good friends before, but.

Tony Maietta:
And they Both died in 2017, the same year, which is kind of interesting. Later on, they became friends, but at this time, there was kind of tension between them. So I love seeing them together because they work beautifully together.

Brad Shreve:
They really did. And I liked the fact that it didn't. They didn't. Didn't ever make them out to be best friends. They were friendly and they were probably. They would probably consider themselves friends, but they weren't like, best buds, you know, Mohsen Cobbins would have just made them friends. And they're always hanging out together.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
No, she's from work and he. She's. One's from work and one's from home, and they. Their connection is through Rob, and so they have a relationship.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Otherwise they probably never would have.

Tony Maietta:
They exist in two separate universes.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And sometimes those. Those universes come together, and this is an episode where they come together, and I think they come together beautifully. I think they work well together. So I love. I love this episode. It's a classic episode. I'm so glad you picked it. I'm so glad you picked it.

Tony Maietta:
Well, now we'll go into mine. But before I do, I think, Brad, you have some things you want to say about the podcast, don't you?

Brad Shreve:
Yes. So thank you for coming back and listening to this podcast. If you haven't rated and reviewed the show, please do so. Tony and I make no money from this. This is. We do this from the heart. We enjoy doing it. But our payment is when you go to Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to this podcast and tell people you enjoy it, so they will do the same.

Brad Shreve:
And if you're new to the podcast, we aren't going to ask you to rate and review because you probably don't know us well enough. But please subscribe so you can learn how much you enjoy the show and then you can go rate and review us.

Tony Maietta:
Is that it?

Brad Shreve:
That is it.

Tony Maietta:
You're throwing me off because you're putting it in a different place. No, absolutely. We don't we don't get paid for this. As we've said, the. The only kind of renumeration we get is in the response from. From you all. So we truly appreciate it. We appreciate the reviews we've gotten and the positive feedback.

Tony Maietta:
And as we're going to our third year, it's really, really appreciated. So thank you, everybody.

Brad Shreve:
Remember, I have to deal with this pompous film historian week after week. I need something to come from it.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, please. When you show up. All right, we're on to my first episode. Yes, and this is from season four. It's episode 27. 121 in the series, and it's called Never Bathe on Saturday. And it's directed by Jerry Paris, it's written by Carl Reiner, and it aired March 31, 1965, and it was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Entertainment Writing.

Brad Shreve:
And it was fun.

Tony Maietta:
It is fun. You know, and we were talking about doing episodes. I knew this was Going to be one of mine. I knew if you weren't going to pick it, I was going to pick it because it's one of the most famous episodes from the series. And I felt like we have to talk about it because it's on so many. For so many reasons. So basically what happens? I'll remind people.

Brad Shreve:
Well, hold on. I got a confession to make. I didn't remember this one at all.

Tony Maietta:
You didn't?

Brad Shreve:
No. Of all our episodes, this is the only one I didn't remember.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, I'm kind of surprised by that. That's surprising. I am, too, because what happens in this episode is. Yes, indeed it is the episode in which Laura gets her big toe stuck in the spout of the bathtub. Now back to our Seven Year Itch mention that Brad did earlier. Do you remember in the Seven Year Itch, Marilyn has the same situation. She gets her toe stuck in the bathtub spout. And I do believe Anne Marie of that girl would have the same.

Tony Maietta:
The same thing would happen to her. What is it about these actresses putting their big toe up the spouts of their bathtub? What's with that?

Brad Shreve:
And after we talk about this, I want to talk about difference between Anne Marie and this episode. So we'll get to that one.

Tony Maietta:
I know, it's so funny, but I love. You know what I love? I love Laura Petrie's Mary Tyler Moore's comeback to this. When. So what happens is, is there. Rob and Laura are in the city for a romantic getaway. They're out of New Rochelle. They're in the city. They're going to go see a show.

Tony Maietta:
But before they do, before they do, Laura wants to go soak in a hot tub and she's not coming out and she calls for Rob from the other side of the door. So the majority of this episode, Mary Tyler Moore is not seen. We just hear her. She's on the other side of the tub. And when Rob asks her, why is your toe caught in the spout? She calls it a faucet. Why is your toe caught in the faucet? She says, I was playing with a drip. Which the way Mary Darling Moore says it is great. I was playing with a drip.

Tony Maietta:
Anyway, this episode, so it's a lot of fun. It's basically what happens is that they can't. Rob can't get into the bathroom because Laura has locked the door from the inside. And she can't get out of the tub because her toe is stuck in the spout. So he tries to break down the door He. It's a huge, big door. He can't do. He can't get it broken down.

Tony Maietta:
There's some wonderful interplay with the maid, who's played by the brilliant Kathleen Freeman by the room service attendant. Finally, the hotel detective comes in and shoots Rob grabs his gun and shoots the hinges and he's able to get in the bathtub. So they get into the bathroom.

Brad Shreve:
Not only do we have Kathleen Freeman, we have the wonderful Bernard Fox.

Tony Maietta:
Yes.

Brad Shreve:
Playing the hotel.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. I forgot about him.

Brad Shreve:
Dr. Bombay. Dr. Bombay. That's all they had to do. Dr. Bombay. Dr.

Brad Shreve:
Bombay. Emergency. Come right away. That's what they should have said.

Tony Maietta:
So it's so funny. And so then they go to commercial, come back, and Mary Tyler Moore is now in a raincoat, covered. They're able to. They have a plumber come and he was able to cut off the spout. And then she's got this thing on the end of her toe. It's all a flashback. And she goes to the hospital, gets it taken off, and that's the end of the episode. So it's a very silly, funny episode.

Tony Maietta:
It's mostly Dick Van Dyke doing brilliant bits of physical comedy to try to get through that door, many of which he improv'd, which are just hysterical. The brilliant Kathleen Freeman, who. If people don't know who Kathleen Freeman was, she was very often in movies with Jerry Lewis. She's always something's. Jerry Lewis is always doing something to her.

Brad Shreve:
You would know her. You would know her face instantly.

Tony Maietta:
She's a brilliant, brilliant comic actress. But here's why I love this episode. I think part of the genius of this episode is Carl Reiner knew that the audience would get titillated picturing Mary Tyler Moore naked in the bathtub. Because she's in the bathtub, she's obviously naked. So the audience is like, ooh, ooh. You know, half the audience, the men would be like, mary Tyler Moore's naked.

Tony Maietta:
What's funny is, is that Mary Tyler Moore hated this episode. Have you ever heard this?

Brad Shreve:
Did she.

Tony Maietta:
She.

Brad Shreve:
No, I didn't.

Tony Maietta:
She was. It's notorious for the backstage stories because probably for the one only time our Mary showed temperament and actually walked off the set and went home. She had.

Brad Shreve:
Wow.

Tony Maietta:
She had an explosion with Carl Reiner. Now, this ain't Mary Tyler Moore. Mary Tyler Moore is not. This is not our girl, Mary. We know this.

Brad Shreve:
We all have our weak moments.

Tony Maietta:
We all have our weak moments. But you know why she was so irritated? Two reasons. The first reason was, was that Carl Reiner kept telling her for weeks and weeks, oh, I got a hell of an episode for you, Mary. I'm writing the best episode for you. You're gonna be so excited when you. When you see this episode. It's gonna be fantastic. She gets the episode, and she's off camera most of the time.

Tony Maietta:
So that's reason number one. She was pissed. But the main reason was she picked a fine week to quit smoking, Brad.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, no.

Tony Maietta:
Hello, airplane. Yes, she. She picked this week to stop smoking. And Dick Van Dyke said as the week went on, she was getting shakier and shakier, and he's like, this is not good. Until finally she exploded, left the set. They filmed on a Tuesday, so this was a Friday, came back on Monday, apologized to everybody. Sweet peaches and cream. And lit up a cigarette.

Brad Shreve:
And you know that I can see why she was upset with Carl Reiner, if that's what he was telling her, because Laura's toe being stuck was really just a MacGuffin to show off Dick Van Dyke physical comedy. It was all about Dick Van Dyke's physical comedy.

Tony Maietta:
Right. And to tell Mary Tyler Moore, I got a great episode for you. Wait till you see it. It's gonna be fantastic. And then you find out you're off camera for most of the. What the hell, Carl? I don't blame her for getting upset. And she quit smoking. So what are you gonna do? That's.

Tony Maietta:
That's what the way it was. So how do you. How do you think this compares with Anne Marie's in that Girl?

Brad Shreve:
It shows how things did. Changed in four or five years. I can't remember when the. I'm going to guess five years later was when Anne Marie, maybe late 60s.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Is in this. In this episode, Laura was behind the door the entire time until when they finally got through and it cut into the bathroom. She's in a raincoat in the world's largest.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, my God. What is this?

Brad Shreve:
Hotel?

Tony Maietta:
Rob's doing good writing for the Alan Brady Show. Hotel's amazing.

Brad Shreve:
But anyway, she is in a raincoat in the that Girl episode, which is an identical premise that she is taking a bath before she has an audition. She puts her toe up into the faucet and her toe gets stuck. And Don is trying to help her. The difference is this one is Laura is off stage the whole time on that Girl. Anne Marie. Bubbles are covering.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, yeah. Like with Maryland.

Brad Shreve:
Never got away with that.

Tony Maietta:
Like with Marilyn in the Seven Year Itch. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
They never would have gotten that away. Away with that on The Dick Van Dyke Show. It's just a little too early.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, no, absolutely. And Marilyn had bubbles in the Seven Year Itch. And in Maryland it was. Well, yeah, Marilyn Monroe. So, okay, there you go. But I often, I'm like, dude, how did they get away with this? I mean, where are the. You know, how can they get away with the exact same plot elements? It's interesting how these writers are able to get away with this. So I don't know.

Tony Maietta:
I don't know copyright law.

Brad Shreve:
Have you watched sitcoms before?

Tony Maietta:
Well, that's true. I guess that's true. That's true.

Brad Shreve:
Let's take one of the 10 premises that we have and do that again for this new series.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. So anyway, that is Never bathe on a Saturday. I think it's a wonderfully funny suite. Even though Mary is off screen for most of the episode, she's still very funny behind that door. Some of her comebacks.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, she is.

Tony Maietta:
I was playing with a drip. Are. Are wonderful. Are wonderful. So we're gonna go on to the final episode that we're going to talk about. My second episode from season five, the final season, actually, the season premiere, episode one, episode 127 in series. It's called coast to Coast Big Mouth. And it was directed by Jerry Paris.

Tony Maietta:
It was writt Bill Persky and Sam Danoff, and it aired September 15, 1965. And it was the Emmy winner for outstanding writing achievement in comedy.

Tony Maietta:
So when we talked about doing these episodes, I knew immediately I was gonna do coast to Coast Big Mouth, I think along with Never bathe on a Saturday and maybe you feel differently. This is one of the most famous episodes. Now, had you. Did you remember this episode?

Brad Shreve:
I did remember this episode. I didn't remember the details. I Will say I was a little bit left down. And there's a reason for it.

Tony Maietta:
Okay.

Brad Shreve:
Because before. Before we watched this, I saw a couple things that said that many critics consider this one of the best episodes of television ever. Which, you know, we've seen lots of shows that were called that.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And it was funny. I'm not denying that. But that had been, you know, when somebody builds up a movie and it just doesn't match, that's the way it was.

Tony Maietta:
Like chuckles.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Just like chuckles. Yes.

Brad Shreve:
Just like Chuckles. But it was really good. And I would love to have seen throughout the series. First of all, I would love seeing Alan Brady earlier in the series. Not very often. I think it was good that he was not on often, but I would like to have seen him earlier. I really love that we really got to see Alan and Laura together.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, they're great. You know what it is? It's shades of Mr. Grant and Mary Richards.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
That's what I was getting in their scene together at the end.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
But, you know. Yeah. I love. I chose this episode because of the fact that it features Carl Reiner. And here's the thing. So. Yes. So Carl Reiner plays Alan Brady, Rob's boss.

Tony Maietta:
Based on a lot of those. As I said, Sid Caesar. Not Sid Caesar. He wasn't based on Sid Caesar.

Brad Shreve:
He took Sid Caesar and said, let's make Sid Caesar an asshole.

Tony Maietta:
Obnoxious. Like. Yes. Milton Berle. That kind of. So anyway, the reason why Alan Brady, in the first three seasons, you just saw the back of his head. He was never.

Brad Shreve:
So which was the pilot as well.

Tony Maietta:
Gimmick. Yes. You never saw Alan's face. But what happened was, was that suddenly they, these two writers, Bill Persky and Sam Denoff, took on more of the creative challenge, more of the creative task. So Carl Reiner had some free time. So he thought, you know what? I'm an actor, and sometimes in these situations, we really need to see more of Alan. So that's why in season four and season five, we suddenly have Alan Brady. The whole Alan Brady, the whole Monty.

Tony Maietta:
Alan Brady, which I love. I think Carl Reiner is brilliant as Alan Brady. That's one of the reasons I love this show. And yeah, you're right. It's TV in TV Guide listed it as number eight. I'm not sure what year this was. I think in 2008, number eight in TV guys list of the hundred greatest TV episodes. And it's a wonderful episode.

Tony Maietta:
What happens in the episode is that Laura and Millie attend a taping of A nationally broadcast show called Pay as yous Go. It's a game show. And Laura becomes a contestant and she is tricked into revealing on air that Alan Brady is bald. That's why the show is called coast to Coast Big Mouth. And so after she tells Rob what happened, they hope that Alan doesn't find out. But of course, Alan finds out. He, Laura, secretly goes to Alan's office to apologize, to try to, you know, to try to get in there before he fires Rob. And in the end, it all works out well because Laura tells Alan, I really like you without your toupee.

Tony Maietta:
What toupee? What are you talking about? So it's really funny. They have a very, very fun little, like I said, Mr. Grant, Mary Richards scene between Alan Brady and Laura Petrie. It's really sweet. And Alan does forgive her and forgive Rob. Doesn't fire Rob because he realizes, he said, my wife even says she likes me better without my toupee. She likes me better bald, basically, than with these toupees. So it's a wonderful ending.

Tony Maietta:
I also think it's interesting because this show was actually inspired by Carl Reiner's real life hatred of wearing toupees. He didn't like to wear toupees and he was always very frustrated when he would have to get a new one. So the writers, Bill Persky and Sam Danoff, took that little kernel from Carl Reiner's real life and made a very funny episode out of it. I think it's a great episode.

Brad Shreve:
Very interesting. You want to know the thing I was most disappointed in this episode?

Tony Maietta:
What's that?

Brad Shreve:
They had to do it to wrap up the show. But I was enjoying Laura and Alan together so much. When Rob finally realized she was there and burst through the door to protect her, I was so disappointed he was there because I was really enjoying those two trying to work this out on their own.

Tony Maietta:
So, yeah, they had great chemistry. They did.

Brad Shreve:
They really did.

Tony Maietta:
Well. Yeah. Well, Mary Tyler Moore looked on Carl Reiner as a hero, obviously her as a hero. Obviously her entire career she has because of Carl Reiner. And so I think she was probably thrilled to be doing this one on one scene with him. And again, it is shades of Mary and Mr. And Mr. Grant.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, it's wonderful.

Brad Shreve:
I didn't think of that, but as soon as you said it, you're dead on.

Tony Maietta:
One of my. One of my favorite things, one of my favorite lines in this show is that when Alan decides that he's going to give up the toupees, he's just going to he's going to come out of the closet as a bald man, but he's not sure what to do with his toupees. And Laura says, well, there must be some needy bald people. Just says it like maritime more does. I love it, love it, love it. It's a fun episode. Even the title, just the title alone makes me smile. I love that.

Tony Maietta:
So those are our four episodes. But I do. Brad, we do have some honorable mentions I think we should talk about. I think there's a couple that we need to say. Hey, but you know, picking four is tough, especially from an incredible series like this. But of course, there's the iconic season two episode, It May look like a Walnut. And yes, that is the famous Twilo episode. The twilo Twilight Zone episode with the visitor, the Tale of Kolar, and that iconic shot of Mary Tyler Moore coming out of the closet on the walnuts.

Tony Maietta:
So absolutely watch that one.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm glad you didn't pick that one, because it is. I was worried you were going to pick that because it's a great episode, but I'm like, everybody talks about that episode. It's like Chuckles the Clown.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
We both agreed we're glad that we didn't do Chuckles the Clown.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Because yes, it's a very famous episode. It's one of the ones they always colorize. I want to say that they aired coast to coast big mouth on July 30, 2020, colorized to mark the passing of Carl Reiner, which I think is. Which is a really sweet. Which was a sweet memory. So it may look like a walnut. There's also from season three.

Tony Maietta:
That's my boy. And this is the episode in which Rob is. It's a flashback. Another flashback in which Rob tells Mel about the time he brought home the wrong. He thought he brought home the wrong baby from the hospital.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, yes. That's a classic. Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Because when Laura gave birth, she was right next to someone named Peters. So you had Petri and Peters. And Rob gets himself into a state because he believes that. That the child they brought home doesn't look anything like him. Well, he's a baby. But still, it gets to the point where Rob contacts the Peter's family and wonders if their baby looks like them. They're like, not really. So they come together at the end, and this was the dilemma they needed.

Tony Maietta:
Irrefutable comic proof that Rob was wrong and he had the correct baby. So when the Peters show up at the door, we don't see them at first, but we see Rob's reaction and what happens, Brad?

Brad Shreve:
I don't remember. Now I remember. I'm gonna guess they're black.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, exactly. They walk in the door and they're black and they're all laughing at Rob. It's such a brilliant. First of all, it's incredibly ahead of its time. And it's a brilliant, funny, smart ending. And it makes so much sense. There's no way this child can be theirs. They're black.

Tony Maietta:
And it's Greg Morris from Mission Impossible, too. And another thing I love about that episode is that you kind of get the feeling that these couples. It's no big deal other than the fact that they're black and they can't have the same child. These couples, they're friends. They're like anybody. It's a wonderfully advanced for the time. Remember, this is season three. So what? This is 63.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, civil rights, you know, it's a wonderfully. It's a wonderful episode. It really is. I highly recommend that as well. It's called that's My Boy from Season three.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, I agree. That is one they should watch.

Tony Maietta:
So that is. Those are episodes of the Dick Van Dyke Show. You know, it only ran for five years. And I know, as I've said many times, you love that. I mean, you and Carl Reiner have the same thing. Apparently, Carl Reiner. Carl Reiner said on the very first day of filming, if we last five years, we're done in five years. And he stuck to it.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, he stuck to it.

Brad Shreve:
And you bless that.

Tony Maietta:
You agree with that.

Brad Shreve:
Bless that man. Yep. I don't think any show should last more than five years. If you disagree with me, watch mash. How that show lasted after. Yeah, never mind.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I don't know. About five years is such a. I mean, for example, I'm glad Mary Tyler Moore didn't, because we got some great episodes. It's six year. I think Everybody Loves Raymond has incredible episodes near the end. But as a rule, unless you have a big creative overhaul like they had with the Golden Girls, after five. Yeah. Things start to.

Tony Maietta:
Carl Reiner even said he felt like they were starting to feed off themselves. They were starting to.

Brad Shreve:
And the ratings were going down, too.

Tony Maietta:
A little bit. A little bit, sure.

Brad Shreve:
So I think not dramatically, but they were going down. That's normal.

Tony Maietta:
But, you know, here's something that's really cool. So there's Larry Matthews, father. Larry Matthews, who plays Richie, his father took color film of the filming of the last episode, and it's on YouTube. So folks, if you have an opportunity besides looking for baby Rosa Marie, look in color footage of the Dick Van Dyke Show. And it's wonderful because you see. You see the show, you see the actors rehearsing in color, and you see the real color of the sets and, you know, colorization pro con, whatever. But it's fun to see it the way it really was. That's a fun.

Tony Maietta:
That's a little fun, little time capsule to go into, you know, and the actors were getting offers to do other things. So it's, It's. It was time for the show to end. But I think that what is definitely true about the Dick Van Dyke show and the legacy, everything we've already talked about, is the fact that except for one notable exception, these actors did not go on to achieve the same kind of success in television that they did in the Dick Van Dyke Show. True, they tried. Dick Van Dyke tried many times. Rosemarie was always popping up on the Doris Day show and things like that.

Brad Shreve:
And every sitcom ever. I mean, now every game show ever, especially Hollywood Squares, every game show ever.

Tony Maietta:
You know, but other than Mary Tyler Moore, this was the peak for so many of these. Of these individuals, you know, it really was. And when you look at this series, I mean, five years, it won 15 Emmys. It was nominated for 25. And that's only five years, though. So it's only five years of nominations. It won best comedy four out of its five years. The last four years, best comedy, Mary Tyler Moore won two Emmys.

Tony Maietta:
Dick Van Dyke won three, and episodes like coast to Coast, Big Mouth, it may look like a walnut. They're all in TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. So, I mean, my God, this is incredible. It's an incredible embarrassment of riches with this show.

Brad Shreve:
And if you look at the list of the top 10 shows during that time period, which I didn't cover, I'm gonna go through them really fast. Bonanza, Beverly Hill Bellies, Gunsmoke, Andy Griffith Show, Lucy show, the Red Skelton Show, Perry Mason, Danny Thomas Show, Wagon Train, Dick Van Dyke show, some of those were still popular in reruns, but I don't think any of them are as respected as this show.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I have to say Lucy show, but no, you're right. No, you know what? You're absolutely right. The Dick Van Dyke show set a benchmark, you know, that was then carried on to. The torch was passed to the Mary Tyler Moore Show. So there would be no Mary Tyler Moore show without the Dick Van Dyke show, literally. Because we wouldn't have the actress, but in every sense of the word. Mary Tyler Moore and Grant Tinker. We can't forget about Grant.

Tony Maietta:
Their goal was to replicate the atmosphere, the sophistication, the quality of the Dick Van Dyke Show. And they did. I mean, out of the ballpark with. With that.

Brad Shreve:
Yep.

Tony Maietta:
So other shows also, you know, hark back to that. And these characters live on. I don't know how many shows Carl Reiner was on playing Alan Brady. I think he was on Mad about yout. I think there was a cartoon. The Alan Brady Show. There were Dick Van Dyke show reunions. There were retrospectives.

Tony Maietta:
You always. You saw Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore on Larry King. I mean, this show will truly, truly live forever.

Brad Shreve:
Did you watch the reunion show from 2004 when Robin Laura lived in Manhattan at that point?

Tony Maietta:
I saw. I saw part of it, yeah.

Brad Shreve:
It was kind of slow.

Tony Maietta:
Reunion shows. Yeah.

Speaker C:
I'd like.

Brad Shreve:
I was different in the sense that it was a reunion show, but they did it still with. In character at the same time. I'd like to go back and watch it again. It's kind of boring, but I don't think I even watched it all. But I think I'm gonna go back and try much again.

Tony Maietta:
I think those shows, it's difficult because as much as we were talking about it's the benchmark of sophistication. It is 60s sophistication. It is definitely of its era. I love this show, but sometimes, you know, a little bit of more Amsterdam can go a long way. And also, you know, I love her, too. I love her to death. But, you know, also a little bit with. With Rosemarie.

Tony Maietta:
And also the attitudes or, you know, it's the 60s. It's the mad Men era. Laura Petrie was a housewife. So what I love about the Mary Tyler Moore show is the fact that it took it one step further and suddenly, you know, we were in the 70s now, but it's very much of its era. So I think it's kind of weird to go back and I don't know. It doesn't work for me personally. It doesn't work for me.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, you have a good point. It's not, you know, it's like the new Frasier show. You know, one of the reasons why Kelsey Grammer and the writer said that we're never going to go back to Cheers, at least they haven't so far, is one, you don't want to change what was going on with all these characters that you were used to. But secondly, if all those people are still hanging out that bar, that's awfully depressing. You can't really, you know, you don't want to see that situation change. But if you didn't have a change, who wants to see that?

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, no, no. Reboots are fine. Is a once one and done, I think is fine. But anyway.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Well, Brad, you already gave our spiel about follow subscribe Rate review. So I guess there's only one thing left to say.

Brad Shreve:
Two things left to say.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, okay. What's the first thing?

Brad Shreve:
First thing is go to my husband and I's YouTube channel, our chosen Spanish Life, where we document trying to adapt to a new life in a country where we didn't step foot into the day we moved here.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, I know. I saw that.

Brad Shreve:
Every awkward moment.

Tony Maietta:
I've watched some. I've told you before, I'm really enjoying them. So. Yeah, I hardly recommend that, you guys. And it's beautiful. It's a beautiful, beautiful place. So go watch his YouTube channel. Go watch it.

Brad Shreve:
And then you had something else to say?

Tony Maietta:
Well, yeah, but you know what, Brad? I don't think I want to say it. So let's not say goodbye. Let's say. Oh, Rob.

Brad Shreve:
No, Laura. Let's say goodbye.

Tony Maietta:
Goodbye, everybody.